art for art's sake

art for art's sake in Culture

art for art's sake definition

A slogan meaning that the beauty of the fine arts is reason enough for pursuing them — that art does not have to serve purposes taken from politics, religion, economics, and so on. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, and Oscar Wilde argued for the doctrine of art for art's sake.

Note: Ars Gratia Artis, the motto of the film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), is a Latin version of “art for art's sake.”